Reflections of a Business-Driven Life
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004 |
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Most Practical Utility Bag ( on tidbits)
You may be interested in this tidbit. Lucky if you live in a city which allows you to drive, which means the most distance you will ever need to log your notebook is the few meters from the parking lot to the house, or from the parking to your office. However, if you live in cities which you need to take public transportation ( bus, trains, taxis), and have to do some amount of walking, then no matter how ultralight the noteboo For starters, it looks like an ordinary notebook bag. But it has wheels. It is also spacious enough that it looks like a bag used to carry computers and documents, but still has space for a day's change in clothes. Thus, it carries clothes without looking like luggage that contains clothes. So when I do overnight trips to customers, I don't have to check in the hotel first thing, but can go direct to them from the airport through taxis ( in cities where renting cars is not practical). And I can check out first thing in the morning and visit customers before going off to the airport without bringing conspicuous clothes luggage. After all, whichever you look at it, it does look like something you would bring to the office, isn't it? 5:20:28 PM comment [] trackback []
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If you are an office warrior, most likely you have been carrying around a notebook computer for years now, and you have started having muscles on both sides of your shoulders from logging around so many pounds everyday.
k is, there comes a time when you start to ask why notebook bags don't have wheels. Part of my routine is I have to do some amount of travelling and have to bring a notebook, I have found this bag to be a practical one.|
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Tuesday, December 21, 2004 |
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Keeping Things to Heart ( on life) Since I have been blogging, I have also been reading more and more of other people's blogs. While many blogs share experiences, and tips, I also noted that some people use the blog to ear out their frustrations. I don't mean to belittle the traumatic or sad experience that they did, but obviously I feel that there is no value to keep stirring up something that happened 10 years ago, or even 2 months ago. I once went to a trip with a businessman, and we were both inconvenienced by a hotel reservations officer. After a few days, I still kept mouthing to anybody that wanted to hear what an inconsiderate person he was, while my companion have already put it behind him, even recalling it with humor. It makes me suddenly realize that was the reason he was a happier businessman than me -- he looked forward, while I continue to emphasize backwards. What is done is done. There is nothing you can do about it, except one -- don't let something that happened in the past continue to make you miserable! One of the most enduring anecdote I heard was told to me when I was in high school. It was told by our school principal who emphasized the importance of being yourself, and pleasing yourself. "A person happened to meet somebody whom he previously had a bad encounter. The person cheerfully greeted the person good morning, which the other person promptly snobbed him. His friend asked him, "Don't you feel slighted that you were snobbed? Then why do you continue to greet him knowing that he has done you wrong and would snob you anyway?" The person said, "well, I feel that I do the things I think is right. Greeting him certainly is certainly the right thing to do. That he snobbed me and choose to be discourteous should be his problem, not mine!" " It is now Christmas. It is the season to rejoice. It should be also a season to forgive -- and forget. Don't keep those things to heart! 10:18:51 AM comment [] trackback []
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Wednesday, December 15, 2004 |
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Taking Stock at 39 ( on life)
It is my birthday today, and I am all of 39. One more strike, and I will enter that magic age, 40, when they say life really begins or in other words, when your living parts really begin to ache. Give or take a few years, and this is the time when you find out you cannot go the distance as you once easily could, and that endless horizon called LIFE which you thought you could travel forever is starting to show visibility. I always joked that there are 2 stages in a person's life. The first stage is when you want to look and sound older than you really are. I am now entering the second stage. That is when you want to look and sound younger than you really are. When you have a birthday, you are bound to see your life flash in front of you. As the years passed, the flash has become longer and longer. Now i have lived 14,235 days ( approximately), and that is a loooonnnng memory to remember. When you put on years, you also start to count how many of these were HAPPY days, and NOT WASTED days. A few days ago, a famous politician here passed away, quite unexpectedly. When events like this happens, it always bring to us a reminder of our own mortality, and we could go anyday. Why am I talking about morbid things on a birthday ? -- because when we take stock of our life, we inevitably bring to the picture our legacy -- which is really the only thing you can leave behind after you are gone ... And planning that have to take into account that you may not have all the time you need to accomplish that thing you really want. What do I really want? 20 years ago, I was sure. I wanted to be the richest man in the world. Now, I still want to, but I am also intelligent enough now to know i will never make it -- not by a wide margin. Maybe I love life too much, or maybe I care or think too much about other life's riches ( reputation, relationships, family, learning, arts, music, cultures, wildlife etc) to make it big time. Or maybe I am just giving an excuse , and I really could not do it even if I wanted to. Age has a bad way of reminding you you really are no SUPERMAN, or invincible being you once believed you were. But for those that aspire to be richer materially, you can give it a try. I always believe money will not make you happy, but at least it will help in not making you miserable..., supposedly. I still believe the person in the movie CITIZEN KANE, who said, " If you really want to be rich, it is not difficult as long as that IS the only thing you want." But many of us want more than just money. We also want many things besides. How you balance that and work towards accomplishing that is not my decision to make, but yours to decide for your own life. Maybe not having enough dollars to ( buy? ) make a difference in this world ( which I think deep down is what we all want to do), I will just do it by making a difference in other ways, maybe through teaching , writing, and living the good life. But then life goes on, and I like to quote Mahatma Gandhi who said, Live as if it is the last day of your life. Learn as if you will live forever. 2:11:54 PM comment [] trackback []
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Sunday, December 12, 2004 |
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The Will to Change ( on business) About two years ago, we had our 20th year high school reunion. Most of us have more than doubled our age since we left high school, and yet it seems like it was just yesterday! The other astounding fact was how little everybody had changed. The faces look the same, the mannerisms look eerily the same. The people you expected to be early were early, the people you expected to dress up did ( because they dressed up in high school), the people who were overweight were still so ( though many who were not have also gained weight) , and the people who were shy were still so. It brings to the forefront how infrequent it is for us to change our character, our attitudes, and our work habits willfully after they are formed. If there were few people who changed, it was change brought about by circumstances. If some had gained weight, it was because their job, finances, or lifestyle change brought about it. How many changed because they willed it so? -- that means through a conscious program undertaken to become better? It points out how difficult it is really for us to change our characters and habits, and yet it is the person who can successfully change instead of being a passive creature of habit or circumstance that will be successful. Witness people who smoke. Virtually all of them know they needed to quit, but only a small percentage do. Witness people who are overweight. Many know they need to lose weight, but then only a small percentage do. The bad news really is that we really end up doing the things we get used to doing, or start to like doing, instead of the things we really ought to do, for our own good. The reason I am saying this is that as a technology company who introduce business and technology solutions to companies, we are in the forefront of changing a company's process, and such process of change frequently encounters resistance by people who keep wanting to do what they are used to, or what they already know. Even in our internal meetings, we institute change and action plans-- change in communication policies, change in working process with suppliers and customers, change in attitude towards service, change in efficiency processes, but eerily unless you come up with a strongly defined, managed and controlled program of change, you will encounter seemingly enthusiastic response, but nil success in implementation. Change Management, or Solution Improvement programs fail not because we don't know what is good for us. At the end, we know what we really ought to be doing ( eat less, exercise more, study harder, organize better, sleep earlier, watch less tv, spend more time with our kids), but force of habit ( or circumstance as is always the ready culprit and excuse) prevents us from doing so. There are offshoots of this. First is that if you are really a student of people, and observe/test well, you can really predict with a great amount of accuracy the success potential of a person based on his habits even when he is just fresh out of school. Next time you are looking for people in the organization, especially in sensitive positions that demands flexibility and change, try looking for people who after all the qualifications, have one additional qualification: Is he/she the person who when confronted with change, have the discipline and will power to see through the change over the force of habit? These are the people who will bring your programs to success. If you note how IBM had to get an outside CEO in the early 90s, and HP had to get one in the late 90s. The people inside have gotten so used to existing processes that it was difficult to institute change from within. On the other hand, there are 2 ways you can help your kids be successful: 1.) Develop in them winning habits and attitudes before they are 16. It will most likely stay with them their whole life, and bring them good stead. 2.) Train them in the discipline of flexibility to change and open mindedness. 4:47:30 PM comment [] trackback []
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Thursday, December 09, 2004 |
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Meeting of the East and West ( on news) If you have been following this blog, you will note that I write a lot about management and living life. While I read Western books and watch English movies, I have mostly Asian upbring and experience, and hopefully it will bring a fusion of ideas of the east and west. I think it is only right, that I make available also these perspectives to Chinese readers, and I am adding an additional Chinese link which will allow them also to read my selected articles in that language. If this is successful, I am planning to add a Japanese version as well. Asia is growing, and there is India growing to be a software superpower, and China as a manufacturing hub. The latest news that shook the technology industry is Lenovo, a Chinese computer manufacturing buying up the PC division of IBM ( I will comment on this on my future post on what I perceived it means). Having worked closely with IBM for the last 10 years, I have some specific thoughts moving forward on what this mean for partners, the industry and the rest of us.
Meanwhile, here is the logo of the company. The Chinese characters translated literally means Integrated thinking which I hope to provide in this blog. This was also IBM founder Thomas Watson's famous dictum ( THINK). I am sure this will not be the last time you will see a fusion of Western and Asian Business. 11:54:30 AM comment [] trackback []
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Tuesday, December 07, 2004 |
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12 Statements of a Positive, Loyal, Effective & Productive Employee ( on tidbits) Ocassionally, I come across gems that I read in books, or articles, or random observations, and I put it here under the (tidbits) column. I got this from a post in Ecademy, a social business network site. It was posted by one of the members, Aldnn Lee of Singapore. This 12 statements encapsulizes what I would think is the ideal environment for an ideal employee. 1. I know what is expected of me at work 11:01:09 AM comment [] trackback []
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Saturday, December 04, 2004 |
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A Person's or a CEO's Greatest Success and Challenge ( on life ) In one of the webboards, we got into talking as to what is the American dream. Then somebody came in and said what was the European dream. Being Asian, I talked a little bit about the Asian dream. This might be too generalizing a bit, and hardly accurate, but the American dream is usually meant to be understood as having great wealth and power. The European dream is normally about self fulfillment, education and respect from peers. I am more Asian, and has always been made to believe that the Asian dream is about leaving a good name, and making your children successful. In fact, a lot of Asian Entrepreneurship is about owning a small business that you can give to your children. The greatest accolade an Asian businessman can get is to be the founder, the honorary chairman, or the PATRIARCH of the numerously successful business of the next generation. I have been fortunate to be influenced by many cultures, and I always say that I want the best of 3 worlds -- so if you note my motto, "to be a learned scholar, a successful businessman, and a good father" it is really a global dream, a meeting of the east and west mentality. I hope that I am not alone in this, about wanting my next generation, my children to succeed because I think that is the acid test of a man's ( or woman's) success. I remember a while back somebody did comment in one of my post that success outside cannot compensate for failure in the home, and I agree. More recently, this has also received a lot of attention, and winning companies, like GE and Intel make it a point that the greatest success criteria of a CEO is actually how well you groom the next CEO and how well he does after you have left. Having to go outside the company to get a CEO is normally looked at as a desperation move, and hardly a sign of management excellence. To be successful, and passing on the success to others would be my goal, and hopefully yours too. Training the next in line or the next CEO thus becomes my greatest success factor and challenge. People might think this is too early ( my eldest is still barely going 11, but I figured I have 5 more years. After that, if I don't have his trust, I'm a goner.). What do you think? By the way, if you have not read, this is a similar theme to "focus on things that lasts" I wrote a few posts earlier. I myself have been spending a lot of time now not only in the various aspects of business, but in doing some amount of reflective thinking ( while my kids are still young), on how I can help shape some of their attitudes in life without necessarily railroading their character or inclination. Most recently, my kids just got their report cards, and I wrote myself some notes on how I analyzed their progress so far. This might be of little interest to others ( after all, this is my kid!), but if you are interested to see how I work out with my kids performance evaluation scorecard, please drop a note, and I will do my best to share it here without boring you. 4:06:57 PM comment [] trackback []
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Last update: 7/11/2005; 9:49:17 AM .
